This podcast tackles topics ranging from trends in the banking sector to innovative customer experience technology. Bradley Cooper, editor, Digital Signage Today, speaks with Suzanne Cluckey, editor of ATM Marketplace, and Sean Matthews, CEO and president of Visix, on these topics.
Cluckey shares insights on how banks are using digital signage to boost the experience for both guests and employees as part of a greater branch transformation strategy. Many banks are trying to discover innovative ways to transform their interior to better engage with customers, and digital signage is one tool in their belts.
Cooper also speaks with Matthews on how digital signage vendors are using innovative technology to improve the customer experience. He addresses topics ranging from:
- Dynamic content
- Trends in digital signage tech
- Environmental digital signage
- Saving money on innovative tech
Bradley Cooper is a writer and technology professional working as Technology Editor for Networld Media Group, where he works diligently to provide quality articles for its virtual currency and digital signage beats.
Since 2007, DigitalSignageToday.com has reported on the important news, events, trends and people in the digital signage and digital out-of-home industries. We reach a global audience of professionals from all sectors of the digital signage market, such as hardware and software vendors, content providers, distributors and resellers, network owners and aggregators and end-users. Our site features a directory of product and service providers as well as slideshows, videos and research.
Transcript
Bradley Cooper: Hello and welcome to today’s podcast for Digital Signage Today. I’m your host, Bradley Cooper. I’m the editor of Digital Signage Today. Today I’ll be joined first by Suzanne Cluckey. She is the editor of ATM Marketplace. She’ll be talking about digital signage in the banking space. Then later we’ll be joined by Sean Matthews, CEO and President of Visix, who’ll be talking about some trends in customer experience.
[Promotion]
Bradley Cooper: Welcome back to the digital signage today podcast. Today we’re going to be talking to Suzanne Cluckey who is the editor of ATM Marketplace and World of Money, and we’ll be talking to her about digital signage in the banking world. The banking world has been very innovative with digital signage, both with attracting new customers and also keeping their employees informed. So with that, let’s welcome Suzanne to the podcast. Suzanne, how are you doing today?
Suzanne Cluckey: I’m good. How are you Bradley?
Bradley Cooper: Doing great. Thank you so much for joining us.
Suzanne Cluckey: Thank you for having me.
Bradley Cooper: So, our first question today is, how are banks using digital signage in your experience?
Suzanne Cluckey: Well, actually there they’re using it in a number of different ways. With branch transformation being such a big deal now with banks trying to make the consumer experience in the bank richer and more connected, banks are using digital signage in ways that attempt to connect more deeply with the customer. And so, they’re thinking through the customer experience, how they want to relate to their customer, what their messages, you know, just how they want to create a relationship.
Bradley Cooper: Great. Thank you. So, in your opinion, do you believe they’re using it effectively? Why or why not?
Suzanne Cluckey: Well, you know, Bradley, it’s like anything – it depends on how you use it. You know, some banks are using it, well obviously, some banks are using it better than others. There are banks using it to indicate wait times for customers, to engage customers during wait times with product messages or community messages that seem to shorten the wait time for the customer so that they’re actually engaged with the bank while they’re waiting. You know, not thinking about the fact that they’re waiting. You know what that’s like when you’re standing in line with nothing else to think about. There are banks that are using it for product messages about product offers. A lot of community banks are using it really effectively to communicate about their involvement with the community – either community activities or stories about, for instance, with a credit union, it might be a story about a member who had particular success thanks to a bank product.
So, there are a lot of different ways they’re using the signage. But, some of the most effective ways are actually when you try to create that sense of belonging with the customer or member so that that person feels like, you know, that they’re at their institution, that they’re at their bank when they’re standing in the lobby and waiting.
Bradley Cooper: Thank you. There’s obviously a lot of new trends coming out in banking technology. I mean, we talk about them a lot in our various websites like blockchain, fintech or even better digital signage. So, what do you see as sort of the top trends in banking technology?
Suzanne Cluckey: In terms of trends, I think I had mentioned that banks are really heavily involved in branch transformation right now, trying to figure out what they should be doing at the branch. I work with ATM Marketplace, and a lot of branches are trying to move less important or less complex, let’s say, not necessarily less important, because your deposit to your checking account may be very important to you, but less complex activities to self-service. So that would be, moving it to an ATM or an assisted self-service device.
Digital transformation can be a really important part of that educational process. As branches begin to transform and change the way they do business, the digital signage that you’re using can help make customers comfortable with that process, can help inform customers about the different ways that they can do a transaction, instead of just having to wait in line at the teller line. So it can be really, digital signage in that context can be extremely important just as a way to sort of acquaint customers or members with your changing mission, I should say at the branch, and how they can use the branch to their best advantage and make the experience more convenient and faster for them.
Bradley Cooper: Well, thanks. Thank you, Susanne. Our last question today is what role do you feel digital signage will play in this future of banking? Specifically with, you know, branch transformation?
Suzanne Cluckey: I think digital signage will be increasingly important in the branch, just as a means to, because the branch is becoming less of that teller interaction kind of environment. With self-service opportunities in the branch, I think that digital signage can help make that personal connection even when the customer or member is not necessarily there to see a teller. It could still have a really warm presence for that customer and help to create a brand experience and a customer experience that produces loyalty and a sense of belonging.
Bradley Cooper: Gotcha. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Suzanne.
Suzanne Cluckey: It’s been my pleasure.
Bradley Cooper: Thank you. And I want to remind our listeners, if you’re interested in hearing more from Suzanne, you can follow her by reading her articles on ATM Marketplace or following our newsletter at World of Money.
[Promotion]
Bradley Cooper: All right. Welcome back to the Digital Signage Today podcast. I’m joined today by Sean Matthews who is CEO and President of Visix, and he’ll be talking with us today about customer experience technology. Sean, how are you doing today?
Sean Matthews: I am doing very well, Bradley. Thank you for having me on today.
Bradley Cooper: Yes, thank you so much. So, we’ll get started here. So, customer experience technology is rapidly rising in all sectors. What are some trends you notice in this area?
Sean Matthews: I think we see a lot of interactive experiences, particularly in the retail and consumer spaces. So, whether you’re at a store buying clothes or a quick-serve restaurant placing an order, you’re seeing a lot of interactive experiences there. And a lot of it, of course, is triggered by things like near-field communications, whether you’re using Bluetooth-driven technologies or apps associated with that Bluetooth so that you can gain more out of the experience based on trends that you may have established through your own buying habits.
In our case, we’re seeing a lot more in the corporate campus and college campus environments where interactive experiences didn’t really exist before. And historically in those spaces, often times signs were treated much more like billboards than any sort of interactive experience. A corporate communicator was trying to cram information down our throats as we pass by on our way to the break room or something. One thing we’re seeing is a lot more interactive experience to create a better passerby or consumer experience in the workplace or in some sort of a campus environment.
Bradley Cooper: Thank you. So, one area that we see a lot of development on is dynamic content. You hear that as a big catchphrase in the digital signage space. But it also can be potentially very expensive. What are some ways end users can integrate dynamic content without breaking the bank?
Sean Matthews: Well, yeah, you’re right. I mean a lot of the technologies that are out there are provided by third-party service providers. Companies like Seenspire and Tint and Screenfeed, and they’re all charging fees for this dynamic content. And oftentimes they’re having to charge fees because they’re having to license a particular technology. Like the automated curation of social media content is, unfortunately, it’s a patented technology, and as a result these guys are having to charge money for it. And of course, there are a lot of other services like flight information display, stock info, that kind of stuff, that all come with some sort of fee.
But the real way to do it if you wanted to minimize the costs associated with it is to really use your own data. And so, if you’re using your own data to effect what is on screen – whether it be in the form of KPIs, sales performance, quote performance, manufacturing or production productivity, call center statistics – all that kind of stuff can easily be delivered at no cost because you already own the data.
So, what appears on screen is information that you are providing again at no cost. And in some cases, it can be very, very simple data-driven content in the form of days without incidents. Countdown clocks are very popular – counting down to the next big event or the next trade show or a sporting event on a college campus. All of that dynamic information really comes at no cost because it’s just, they’re just points in time or other reference data.
And one trend that currently is playing out is the use of data visualization. You can’t really confuse things like data-activated artwork or, you know, content that is changed based on certain parameters. Things like Microsoft BI and other data visualization dashboards are becoming quite popular. And if you’ve already made that investment in something like Microsoft BI, then you already have access to that information and that visualization really at no additional cost to put it on displays in your organization.
Bradley Cooper: Great. So, with that in mind, what do you kind of see happening in the near future and this world of customer experience technology?
Sean Matthews: Well, I think you’re going to continue to see more and more automated content because, again, things like these dashboards really draw from a wide variety of information sources and then turn data into information or visualization that’s designed to affect human behavior and really designed to affect productivity or solicit some sort of reaction or response to that information.
And additionally, I think you’re going to see much greater interaction with the displays. And I mentioned a minute ago trying to change the medium from being a billboard within your organization to an interactive experience that you can customize to your own presence in front of the screen. I do think that it’s definitely trending in that direction away from just five years ago of just static information being presented on screen.
Bradley Cooper: Thank you. And with that in mind, what is some ways that Visix is working in this space?
Sean Matthews: We obviously want to create the most interactive experience that we can so that, again, you can customize yourself what your interaction looks like on screen. And one of the ways that we’re doing it is incorporating voice user interface.
So, if you think about the same model that you know, Amazon and Google and Siri are all using with their microphone arrays. In our case, instead of walking up to the display and interacting with your fingers, you can just walk up to the display and talk to it. And so in a way finding scenario, if you’re looking for a particular store, or let’s say in a hospital you’re looking for the gift shop and you think about the hospital environment, it’s a perfect environment to eliminate the touch element and just incorporate the voice integration so that we can ask the display “Where’s the gift shop?”
And of course, it can respond with directions on screen. It can map our route. And in fact, if we want it to text us directions, we can just ask the display to text directions to our number and articulate our number to the display and it shows up on our phone. So that’s one of the things that we’re doing. It’s a little different and unique. And it’s – I don’t want to call it bleeding edge because you know, Alexa and all these other things had been around for awhile – but taking that technology and porting it over into this other signage experience.
Bradley Cooper: Right. And also, obviously with hospitals, having that technology can sort of, you know, prevent people from getting germs on the touchscreens. So, the last question we had for today was, are there any innovative technologies you would like to highlight?
Sean Matthews: Yeah, I mean that’s an interesting question because oftentimes, when I listen to other people talking about technologies, often what they’re talking about are things that are just so bleeding edge, it’s going to be years before we actually see them. But I do think that one thing that I constantly run into – whether it’s an integration partner doing this or our client asking for it or a client trying to replicate something else that they’ve seen – that is the incorporation of other new and unique display technologies.
You know, a lot of guys have these displays that can bend or flex and/or transparent. And, you know, that technology is just evolving really quickly along with you know, projection technologies. And the reason I think that this is really quite frankly relatively innovative in this space is because, historically – I mean for decades – digital signs have been really black rectangles mounted to walls and you know, hallway intersections and elevator bays and that kind of stuff. But now you can actually transform the experience and transform the physical structure that you’re working in into something more than just like a hardened display on the wall. You’re painting imagery on the wall and having that imagery change based on other inputs. That really changes the entire physical experience in terms of what you might see in your business environment.
Bradley Cooper: All right, well, thanks so much for joining us today, Sean, and sharing your insights with us.
Sean Matthews: Great. Thank you, Bradley.